A great question that came up during the B Corp Month lunch time panel was around how businesses are hiring and recruiting new staff remotely throughout COVID-19.
Quiip is an entirely remote business, so we do all of our recruitment virtually and we’re always keen to learn more and improve the way we recruit and onboard. Some of our processes include:
We don’t rely on resumes. Instead we utilise a series of phone/video interviews and assign tasks. We also have really good industry and network contacts to help us source great community managers.
We have an induction handbook that provides all of the info a new employee needs to know about the business. We aim to review or update this throughout the year so that it becomes a living, breathing doc that reflects our business.
Our ‘office’ is an online enterprise community in Workplace by Facebook, and just like a new employee would be introduced and shown around a traditional office, we do the same on Workplace. This includes an introductory thread where we all get to learn a bit more about each other.
We schedule synchronous working times so a new team member can shadow a more seasoned employee to see how they do things.
Have you been remotely recruiting new staff during COVID-19? Are there any key learnings you can share?
Hey Larah, We do similar things as above. Reference checks and long video interviews with lots of hard questions seem to work. I answer some of the questions to aiming to create shared venerability. (we are going to find out how weird people are eventually so we think it’s better to know upfront.
We also have our online community through Mighty Networks that we have courses for onboarding in.
Most of the systems are written and also have video (in loom but this may change) on how to do each task. Basic intro’s to the systems and tech for everyone and more specific courses for each role.
We include the new recruit in a Monday meeting and do a 1-2 min intro with everyone. (this takes a while but gets them up to speed heaps quicker)
For staff who miss meetings or are in different time zones we record team meetings. This is helpful for getting them onboarded with culture. How we talk to each other and transparency etc.
I also schedule time to catch up with them for 6 weeks twice a week to see if they need anything or something is not making sense etc. It always great to have fresh insights into the business and helps create a culture of questioning and thinking not just accepting how things are.
@Zach I love the idea of scheduling fortnightly check ins for the first 6 weeks, it’s a nice way of reinforcing the connection in a more personal/1:1 setting.
How do you find Mighty Networks? The community management geek in me is always keen to hear what people think about different community platforms.
We’ve been recruiting hundreds of roles all through Covid and all remotely of course and much as we love a face to face, we’ve proved it can be done just as well. Thorough telephone screening and then video interviewing followed by thorough reference checking and relevant assessments is the key. I agree with all of the above re on boarding although we have weekly check ins for everyone in our business throughout their career with us not just in their first 6 weeks, often for between 30 minutes to 1 hour with their direct manager, during Covid this has increased to often twice weekly shorter checkins. What we’ve also added is a weekly “Share and Learn” Zoom or MS Teams meeting for all staff on topics of their choice which has been really helpful as people have learnt the “new norm” way of working.
What I’d love to learn from others is how you embed your culture with new employees whilst we’re all working remotely.
Also I would love to know how to develop trainees remotely, what we are now missing is the opportunity to learn by hearing others on the phone or conversations in the office, not the nuts and bolts of a task, more the nuances within a role.
Lovely to have you here Nikki, thanks for joining!
For culture I think having an online workplace community is key - although I’m somewhat biased as an online community nerd At Quiip we use Facebook’s Workplace and it’s key to creating our culture. I really enjoyed this article on the levels of remote work. I’m not entirely sure we’re at Level 5 “Nirvana” just yet!
At Quiip we use Facebook’s Workplace and it’s key to creating our culture. I really enjoyed this article on the levels of remote work. I’m not entirely sure we’re at Level 5 “Nirvana” just yet!